


press restart

by luminoussbeings



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action & Romance, F/F, M/M, POV Multiple, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-02-22 10:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13164720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luminoussbeings/pseuds/luminoussbeings
Summary: “Where’s Rey?” Finn interrupts, and Poe’s heart sinks.





	1. Chapter 1

In dreams, he sees the forest.

Images stack and loop through his mind. The sickening _crack_ of Rey’s skull against the tree. Blood hissing into snow as Ren’s face twists feral and his gloved fist pounds against his side. The red-blue burn of sabers locked and sizzling in the cold air.

Blinding agony driven up his spine.

Darkness presses, firm but unreachable. He wants desperately to yield to it, to let it wash these scenes from his sight, but it shrinks from his touch like the wrong pole of a magnet.

( _Ren’s eyes spill with raw, measureless hate and his teeth glint smudged-white in the dark. The hilt of his saber sears Finn’s shoulder and he screams, he screams, he screams.)_

Perhaps, he thinks, as he watches Ren’s blood drip dark in the snow, he is dead, and this is his hell. Phasma always said that disobedience would never go unpunished, and leave it to the First Order to find some way to make him miserable, even in the afterlife. He pictures her chrome helmet inclining in that smirking way as she sentences him to an eternity of _crack_ against the tree and _sizzle_ against his skin and pain, pain, _pain_ so sharp it scrapes him out inside.   

 _No_. The intensity of his thought surprises him, but he latches onto it, lets it carry him like driftwood out of a river. The First Order had him once. He will _never_ let them have him again.

Ahead Kylo Ren pounds one, two, _three_ on his side, and behind Rey flies _crack_ against the tree. But this time, Finn ignores them both, looking instead to the sky, the darkness flecked with spots of bright. He reaches up and spreads his trembling fingers toward the night.

For a moment, nothing happens. The sky yawns wide and Rey snaps against the tree and Ren screams in rage, but then it’s _wrong_ , all wrong, because somehow the darkness is receding and suddenly he’s grasping stars in his hands, the light bursting forth all at once, smothering his vision until gasps wrack his body and he finally breaks free.

**********

“Finn? _Naked?_ Wh—BB-8, that’s not funny,” Poe glares at the little droid, already starting to regret some of the things he let slip the other night.

In the past few months, BB-8’s taken to acting like a makeshift therapist. On late nights when D’Qar’s moons fill the sky, Poe presses his elbows to his knees and hunches over the edge of his cot, dredging up the things that keep him from sleeping. BB-8 listens as the words tumble from his lips, sometimes interjecting with a demure beep or a nuzzle against his knee. It’s a sweet, selfless routine, one of those things that make Poe stop and wonder how he’d been so lucky to get a droid—a _friend_ —as good as this.

But now he casts his astromech a suspicious glance and wonders if the sneaky little shit only went along with it to learn his secrets.

BB-8 beeps insistently, and Poe rolls his eyes, turning around with exaggerated deference. “Okay, _sure_. You’re not joking, and I’m going to look up and see Finn naked in the middle of the hangar, and I’m _not_ going to send you to maintenance for a week, and— _Holy Yoda!_ ”

The last part comes out in a yelp. Before he can even think, he’s swinging out the x-wing cockpit and pushing through the hangar, BB-8 chirping a three-tone _told you so_ behind him. His boots scuff against the duracrete floor and he blinks hard a few times as he nears, but nothing changes—Finn is still there.

Poe calls his name, and Finn turns to him, his eyes ridged with confusion and his skin taut over his cheekbones. But he’s _whole_ and _alive_ and _awake,_ and Poe stops short, the force of his relief knocking the air out of his lungs.  

He knew, intellectually, that the coma was temporary, a necessary medical procedure to hasten the healing process. But for all the bioscans and medic’s assurances and confident projections, the sight of Finn—immobile, stretched out on the table, chest barely rising with each shallow breath—shoved him back in time to that scared six-year-old on Yavin IV, clutching his mother’s cooling hand and thrashing against his father’s arms.

“Poe,” Finn starts and stops, voice breaking from lack of use. The bacta suit hangs loosely over his frame, its contents swirling inside and drenching his bare chest in the sweet, herbal-scented gel.

Finn gives him an odd look and Poe’s face heats as he realizes he’s not only staring, but his hand is stretching out, almost by its own accord, as if to lay on Finn’s chest. Embarrassment spikes through him and he changes course midair, clapping Finn on his uninjured shoulder and babbling with a determined nonchalance.

“Finn, buddy, it’s so great to see you. Really, _really_ great—I’ve missed you so much. I mean, not _I_ as in me—well, including me, I guess—I mean the whole Resistance, and _force_ , why am I still chattering on when you must have a million questions—”

“Where’s Rey?” Finn interrupts, and Poe’s heart sinks.

************

She wakes to a pair of dark eyes staring back at her own.

Desert-hardened instincts take over. Her hand jumps to the staff strapped across her back, a millisecond away from unsheathing it when she processes who’s— _what’s_ —in front of her.

 _Oh_.

The porg blinks curiously, hopping an inch closer. Relaxing, Rey sits up and pushes her arms into a stretch. The sudden movement startles the bird, and it takes off, squawking loudly on its way to rejoin its friends.

She rubs the sleep from her eyes. Ahead, the still-dark sky paints the sea a deep blue, melting into gold at the horizon. The bird woke her a half-hour before dawn, she estimates, but she finds she doesn’t mind; it was her own decision to sleep out here, after all. Luke offered a cot inside, but Rey took one look at the spongy hills, so _green_ and so _alive_ , and decided there was no way she’d be cooped up in a stone prison all night. Not when there was so much life out here.

When she told him that, there’d been an instant when Luke gazed at her with sunken, unreadable eyes. A second later he seemed to remember himself, the scowl sliding back into place as he grumbled and returned to his hut without another word.

But later that night, when he thought she was asleep, he stood a few meters away, watching with that same peculiar expression. As if she were a riddle he wasn’t sure he wanted to solve.

Or a memory left purposefully buried.

She picks up a handful of soil and lets it filter through her fingers, leaving the rocky base behind in her hands. She knows things like this shouldn’t still amaze her. After all, she’s been to five planets now— _five_. After glittering lakes and sprawling forests and _snow_ (snow!), a handful of soil shouldn’t delight her. But it does, and she can’t help it, so she embraces it, this tiny handful of dirt and rock and spindly roots.

Jakku doesn’t have soil. It has sand, and it has rocks, but they’re different. Barren. Vagrant. Battering and shifting and blowing away. Not like here, or Takodana, where the ground lies firm and solid beneath your feet.

She swirls her fingers in the dirt and tries to imagine what it’d be like to grow up in a place like this, but her mind circles inevitably back to thirst and cracked skin and grit caught between her teeth.

Maybe she can blame Jakku for that cavern inside her. Maybe the buffeting winds weathered a hollow that no lifetime can fill. Maybe she was over before she even began.

But no—she pushes to her feet and shakes her head, as if her malignant thoughts were grains of sand she could dislodge with a mere toss of her hair. She can’t allow herself to slip down that path. She _won’t_. She promised General Organa she’d bring her brother home. She promised Finn they’d meet again. And she promised herself she would find Kylo Ren and make him suffer.

And no matter what stands in her way—Luke’s stubbornness, millions of miles, unfaceable odds—Rey will make good on her promises.

**********

Growing up in a desert, Rey learned quickly to evaluate thirst. She eventually came up with a classification based on three broad categories:

  1. The kind that crouches in the back of your mind, like an insect perched high in the corner of your room. You can get by with it there, but a part of you is always thinking about it, always dreading when it’ll move closer.
  2. The kind that lodges in your throat and drains the moisture from your tongue, your lips, the roof of your mouth. It propels you to action; to find water if it’s available, or step toward despair if it’s not.
  3. The kind that steals your breath, cracking your lungs with each inhale and pounding on your skull until you can’t move, can’t think, can’t do anything but lie there with your lips parted and mind foggy and pray for a merciful stranger to pass by with a canteen, or, if not, a blaster.



Right now, Rey’s at a 1. It’s not so bad, really, and she’s definitely felt worse, but the voice in her head that kept her alive all these years whispers for her to find a spring, just in case.  Plus, she has a bad feeling that if she asks for something to drink, Luke will just grin and offer that horrid green milk, and Rey would rather spend a week on level 3 than let that sludge pass her lips ever again.

Fresh water isn’t easy to find. But Ahch-to supports a variety of alien life, and they must drink something, so Rey keeps looking. After a few minutes it occurs to her that there’s no guarantee the creatures even _need_ fresh water—it is an oceanic planet, after all, and it wouldn’t be too far out for them to drink salt water. But a moment later the porg she’s been tailing hops around an outcropping and she sees it: a small, round pool, shiny like the flat side of a coin.

A smile breaks across her face and she jogs forward, lowering herself to kneel before it. She nods to her reflection and makes a note to retie her hair after she drinks. Then she poises over the water, her lips just about to break the surface when something— _everything_ —shifts.

She jumps to her feet, staff brandished protectively in front of her. All the noise around her—the porgs splashing in the pool, the waves crashing on the rock, the faraway chatter of Caretakers in their morning chores—falls away. It’s all still there, but—muted, somehow. Like there’s invisible hands covering her ears. Yet her own breathing, ragged and harsh, resounds abnormally sharp.

What the _hell_ is going on?

She turns and looks back at the pool, jumping at the sight. What moments ago shone with her own reflection, now shines black, as if the pool were somehow drained and refilled with oil.

She creeps closer and closer until her knees press once again into the cool mud. Drawing a breath, she reaches out a hand, fingers shaking as they near the surface. A part of her mind, the sane, rational part, is screaming at her to pull back, to run far, far away, because when has sticking an arm into a strange, possibly supernatural substance ever turned out well for anyone?

But another voice, the voice that urged her to steal the Millenium Falcon, the one that pushed her to escape her bonds on Starkiller and showed her how to beat Kylo Ren into the snow, whispers gently into her ear. Maybe it’s a test from Luke, maybe it’s a trick from Snoke, maybe it’s a by-product of some green-milk induced delirium. But whatever it is, she _has_ to know, so she extends her shaking fingers and plunges them below the surface.

The world folds inside out. She quickly withdraws her hand but the pool’s already gone, fallen away with the rest of Ahch-to. At first, it seems like she’s standing in a blank, white room, walls made of pure light. She blinks, and as her eyes focus she realizes it’s not that at all, but another planet, its surface coated in some chalky white substance.

Dimly, she thinks that this must be a vision, like when she touched the lightsaber in Maz’s castle. She’s still not entirely sure what she was supposed to see then, and she sure as hell doesn’t know what she’s supposed to see now.

She takes a cautious step forward, the ground crunching under her boots. The movement stirs a cloud of red dust, and she frowns, crouching to examine it. When she looks back up, a rickety speeder is barreling straight toward her.

Panic roots her to the spot. She should move, she _has_ to move, if she doesn’t want to get flattened—or does she? Are there rules for death in a dreamscape? Can she just pop back up like nothing ever happened?

The speeder gets closer and her heart lurches when she realizes it’s _Finn_ in the cockpit. She screams his name, but if he hears, he doesn’t give any indication. His eyes are almost serene, but his face is resolute, hands locked around the controls. He looks—he looks _resigned_.

Confused, she looks in the direction he’s hurtling towards.

Her heart stops.

Out of the mist rises a massive, pulsing _thing_ —a cannon, or energy weapon of some sort. A cold inkling drips in her stomach. _No, no, no_ —she whips back to Finn, the same quiet, stoic expression on his face— _No_ —she’s screaming now, everything sliding into place with grim clarity.  She waves her arms and runs, finally, towards the speeder, reaching out with the Force and trying to halt it in its path. But she’s too late. The speeder passes right through her, like she’s not even there.

Because she isn’t.

She blinks and her head is poised over the pool, the porgs splashing and waves crashing and Caretakers chattering like normal. But nothing is normal. Not to her, anymore.

Her chest heaves and she crawls away from the pool as fast as her shaking limbs allow. She knows she should go back and drink, but suddenly thirst and hunger feel like dreams, like things that belong to other people.

People who didn’t just learn that their best friend is going to die.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Where’s Rey?” Finn asks again, because Poe’s eyes went far away and now fear chokes him like a vice. “Is she safe? Is she alright?”

She must’ve gotten away, he tells himself, she _must’ve_. He’s alive, after all, and someone had to have been there to pull him from the snow.

But logic falls away under this iron grip of fear.

Poe blinks, sliding back into himself. “Rey— _yeah_ ,” he says, and Finn’s whole body sags under warm relief. “She’s fine. She’s great, actually—took the _Falcon_ to find Master Skywalker a few days ago.”

“Master Skywalker? They found him?”

Poe nods, a real smile lighting up his eyes. “Come on, let’s get you some clothes,” he says, sliding his arm around Finn’s side and shepherding him gently out of the hangar. “We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

Poe leads him back to his room. They draw no small amount of attention as they go—the famous hot shot pilot, accompanied by a half naked near stranger, scar tissue crawling a fiery line up his back.

One woman gives a low, impressed whistle as they pass, holding out a hand for Poe to high five. He shoots her a withering look and ducks Finn’s questioning as they wind through crowds and hallways.

Part of Finn squirms under their gazes, their unabashed stares. But another part of him leans into it. Embraces it. He’s faced down TIE fighters and Captain Phasma and Kylo _fucking_ Ren—let them stare.

He catches a young man eyeing him and even throws him a wink. The man—pilot, by the looks of his uniform—looks away quickly, but not before Finn sees the hint of a blush creep up his cheek. Embarrassment at being caught staring at an injury? Or being caught at—something else?

Finn almost voices that to Poe, but the glower he’s giving the pilot makes him decide otherwise.

A six digit code lets them into the room—cabin, really, stooped and compact and not entirely unlike the ones he’d slept in on some First Order starships.

The comparison makes him uneasy. _No._ Not like the First Order at all—even in the minute he’s been here, he’s noticed enough personal touches to get a trooper sent in for reconditioning.

While Poe digs through a drawer, Finn picks up a tiny holoprojector from the smooth plastoid desk next to his cot. He turns it over in his hands, wondering if he could use a similar model to record a message for Rey, when his fingers brush against the trigger and a glowing image springs forth.

Finn nearly drops it, and Poe lifts his head from the drawer. “Sorry,” he says hurriedly. “I didn’t mean to pry, I just—“

“It’s no problem,” Poe says easily. “Meant to turn that thing on more, anyway.”

The hologram still floats between them—a pretty, dark haired woman, mouth wide and lips parted, forever frozen midlaugh. “Who is she?” Finn can’t help but ask.

“My mother.” Poe takes the projector and hefts it in his palm, sucking his bottom lip under his teeth. “Was,” he adds softly.

“Oh—Poe, I’m sorry,” Finn says again, cheeks burning, feeling not unlike the galaxy’s biggest idiot. _Nice going, Finn. Follow your new friend to his cabin and dredge up memories of his dead mother—_ that’s _the way to make him like you._ “I had no idea, I didn’t mean—“

“Finn, buddy, it’s _okay_ ,” Poe says, holding up a hand. “Really. It was a long time ago. And—it’s good to be reminded.” He gives the woman another fond smile, then clicks it off and tucks it in his pocket.

“Right,” says Finn. His eyes flit to Poe’s, then dance around the room. “I never knew my mother,” he says slowly. “I was taken before I ever could. But sometimes—in my head—I think I see a smile, or a hear a hint of a song, and I wonder…” He breaks off and clears his throat. “Your mother,” he says. “Can you remember—?”

“Yeah.” Poe says, his smile crooked. “She taught me how to fly.”

***

Rey makes it through all of three training sessions before she cracks.

“Higher,” Luke urges, and she’s trying, _really_ , but then _it_ crosses her mind again. Just for an instant, but her concentration falters. That’s all it takes. She has just enough time to cringe out of the way and widen her eyes at the truly _inventive_ curse flying out of Luke’s mouth. And then the tower of rocks she’s spent the morning painstakingly balancing plummets downward, pummelling the ground with the force of a miniature asteroid shower.

Across the field, a Caretaker glares at her. Rey winces. Not her finest moment.

“Master Skywalker,” Rey starts, dusting herself off.

Luke silences her with a look. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“I know I messed up,” Rey says, bowing her head in an attempt at piety, “but my tower was so high this time! I was almost up to half a klick—”

“ _When_ ,” Luke whirls, interrupting, “are you going to get it through that sand-blasted head of yours that _it’s not about the rocks?_ ”

Rey stares at him, dumbfounded. When it becomes clear that she won’t be experiencing any dawning looks of comprehension, Luke sighs. “Look, kid, I get it. Probably more than you know. All those legends you’re so fond of—‘the mighty Luke Skywalker’—they ever mention where he’s from?”

They hadn’t, but Rey scrunches up her nose in a convincing imitation of searching thought nonetheless.

Luke huffs. “Tatooine. Desert, as far as those twin suns beat. We grow up differently in places like that, don’t we? Everything’s literal. No time for any metaphysical baloney. Discover a new tool, and the first thing you do is use it to survive. Rework it to fit your needs.

“But that’s the thing. The Force—it’s not just another tool. Can’t jury-rig it to do your bidding. Right now, you’re looking at it for what it can offer _you_. Power. And don’t try saying otherwise, ‘cause I’m not too keen on liars,” Luke adds when Rey starts to protest. “But the Force—you have to get on _its_ level. You have to _understand._ You have to have the utmost focus. Oh, you can _try_ to go straight for the powerful stuff, sure, but it’ll take you down a road I’m not sure you want to follow.” He looks at her meaningfully, and Rey bristles.

Is he implying—? Yes, he _is_ , she decides, her anger surging. “What—you think that just because I want to learn how to _fight_ I’m going straight to the Dark Side?” Rey sputters.

“Well—”

“I can’t believe this,” she says hotly. “So maybe I do want power! So what! _Power_ would’ve defeated Kylo Ren and saved Han Solo. _Power_ would’ve stopped the First Order before they murdered everyone on Hosnian Prime.”

“Rey, no. You can’t fall into that way—”

“You know, I wasn’t even planning on sticking around this long to begin with. My friend—the one who was almost _murdered_ by the Dark Side before, mind you—he’s in grave danger. And I’m coming to realize that every second I waste here puts him closer to that fate.”

Rey expects Luke to fight back, to match her venom with equal ferocity, but instead he seems to deflate. She watches with a furrow in her brow as he casts his eyes skyward and mutters, “So the student really does become the master, huh?”

“What are you on about this time?” Rey demands, but her anger’s already beginning to dissipate.

“Oh, nothing. Just an old man and some well deserved karmic justice,” Luke says with a bitter smile.

Okay. Rey doesn’t know how to respond to that. If the old Jedi’s plan was to confuse her into calming down, then it seems to be working.

“Well,” she says after a moment, “I’m still leaving.”

Luke nods. “I know from experience that once you’re decided, nothing I say will stop you. But I wouldn’t be much of a Master if I didn’t at least try.” He meets her eyes, weathered face tightening with intensity. “Rey. I meant what I said before. You have so much power in you— _so_ much—but you need to learn the balance. Stay, at least for a little longer, and train.”

“I can’t,” says Rey. “Finn—my friends—they need me.”

Luke nods again, pursing his lips. “Then I wish you all the best. But remember—visions, they’re not always what they seem. Snoke and the Dark Side are gonna do their damned level best to get you to fall. Don’t let them be right.”

“I won’t,” Rey promises. But as she boards the _Falcon_ and takes one last sweeping look at the island that’s consumed her dreams for so long, a cold, silvery coil of dread worms through her middle. She tries to shake it off, tries to look to the Force for guidance like Luke taught her, but it’s—dark. Shrouded. Hidden, like drapes strewn hastily over cargo.

Heart leaden, she takes off into the clouded night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like 8 billion years late and star wars fandom is, like, basically on life support atm so YEAH this isn’t the best time but those new set pics have me feeling some type of way so!! Thanks for reading!!


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